Yeah well you have to get into the whole "I'm a @ and that green D is a Great Swamp Wyrm" thing but it's very functional 'cause you recognize stuff fast once you're used to it.

I recently managed to completely beat the game and it's possibly the greatest gaming achievement I had, 'cause the game is very long, it's extremely easy to die if you're not careful (and even if you are) and once you die you can't backup your save file, you have to start again (of course you can but it's considered cheating).

An essential part of the game is discovering which race-class-strategies are strong enough to get you going, because most will get you killed in no time.

Cool, I'll try this out. I'm a big fan of nethack, but I don't have the memory or patience to get anywhere near beating it. For new fans of the genre or anyone who wants something a little easier, I would recommend POWDER, which has a lot of the mechanics of more traditional roguelikes, but without as much subtle intricacy and near impossible difficulty. Not that I've managed to beat it either, it's just a lot easier to get into.